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Saoirse Ronan had 'fun' working with Wes Anderson

Saoirse Ronan has opened up about her experiences working on Wes Anderson's new film The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Speaking to RTÉ TEN, the 19-year-old Irish actress who stars in this week's new release How I Live Now, revealed that for the first time she was not chaperoned by her mum Monica or dad Paul on the set.

She said: “It was grand actually. Mam came over with me to make sure everything was alright and no one was a serial killer or anything and they weren't, luckily!

“It was strange for the first day, because she had always been there and then she wasn't. I was in a hotel and they didn't have room service so we had to go down for dinner every single night but it was good. It was the right time for it to happen. I felt safe and comfortable and ready to do it and they trusted me.

“It was in Germany then I went to Detroit afterwards…on my own. It kind of went from me saying to them 'Yeah, I’ll be fine. I'm in a safe environment’ to ‘Right I’m going to go to the murder capital of the United States of America where everyone shoots each other!' They don’t, by the way. Detroit is the most incredible place and I love it there. But she did the same with that one, came over for a week and again made sure I was going to be okay."

She added: “It’s not like you’re completely on your own, you’re getting picked up in the morning, you’re getting food made for you most of the time, you’re with the people that you’re working with and nobody else so it’s a relatively safe environment unless there’s someone who might lead you astray. The thing is that they know I’m not the type to do anything silly.”

Saoirse also gushed about working with the critically acclaimed director Wes Anderson. The Carlow natice said: "It was surreal. The thing that amazes me about Wes, and I've seen almost all of his films is that, is that they're all great, they're all brilliant.

"His films don't make that much money but everyone who loves them, loves them. So it's the only film that I've ever come away from and have been able to say, it's gonna be good. I know it's going to be good.

"[Before he begins] he knows what he's gonna' do with it. He uses these animatics [story board technology] so when he's on set, he has this little iPad mini and he basically has story boarded the entire film, turned in into an animation, voiced all the characters and he shows you want he wants you to do on this little screen.

"He's 100% precise on what he wants, how he wants you to move, he'll tweak little [bits]. You'll do 30 takes on one little thing but at least it doesn't feel monotonous because he's tweaking something every time and we do roll and reset. We just keep the camera going and he usually does it on film which is amazing...You should want to kill yourself but you don't because he's so wonderful. He makes it so much fun."